March 21, 2014

The University of California has conducted a giant Campus Climate Study to see if students are comfortable. From my experience, the climate on UC campuses is very comfortable. For example, right now at UCLA, it's sunny and 64 degrees. When I got my MBA there in 1980-1982, that was pretty much what it was like year round. Maybe UC Riverside isn't quite so mild, but, hey, even that's not exactly Cornell.

Oh, but actually, the jargon terms campus climate comfort don't have anything to do with the weather anymore. They have to do with how aggrieved aggrieved groups feel about the level of microaggressions and/or nanoaggressions on campus.

As I wrote ten years ago after visiting Claremont Colleges to check out one of those false flag attacks (a liberal feminist professor trashed her car, then told the FBI it was likely committed by her white male students) that are such a commonplace on contemporary campuses:

It was 72 degrees with a gentle breeze blowing, so the climate seemed okay to me, but a flier on Pitzer bulletin boards made the local idée fixe a little clearer: "Diversity and Campus Climate: You are invited to participate in a discussion about campus climate."

Another advertised: "Queer Dreams and Nightmares: What is it like to be a student at the Claremont Colleges? Student panel discussion addressing the current climate at the 5-Cs, both academically and socially." This was part of a conference entitled, with that profusion of punctuation that is the secret fraternity handshake of post-modern academics, "[Re]Defining a Queer Space at the Claremont Colleges."

The university's main concern appears to be to make students feel "comfortable," a word that reappears constantly in Claremont publications despite the obvious hopelessness of the project. The only way to make 19-year-olds feel comfortable is to wait 30 years while they sag into their well-padded maturities. Right now, they are teenagers and their surging hormones have far more important emotions for them to feel than comfort. Adults, however, who make careers out of encouraging kids to mold permanently self-pitying identities around their transient social discomforts have much to answer for.

About one-quarter of University of California students and employees responding to a survey said they had experienced intimidating or hostile conduct or felt excluded on campus -- and 9 percent said it was bad enough to affect their work or study, according to a new report released by the university system.

Although the findings were consistent with those of smaller previous surveys, the number of people reporting problems was concerning, said Gibor Basri, UC Berkeley's vice chancellor for Division of Equity, Inclusion and Diversity, a position created in 2007.

"We don't like almost a quarter of the population feeling like they're having a negative experience," Basri said. "Maybe that's similar across the country, but that's still not OK."

The findings, mirrored at UC Berkeley, came to light Wednesday as part of a systemwide Campus Climate Study. A popular buzzword, campus climate describes attitudes, behaviors and interactions at schools -- often, as they affect minority group members.

As at many colleges, UC's work to make campuses healthier and more harmonious began after an uproar: In early 2010, students protested a series of acts targeting minority groups on UC campuses, including a swastika carved into the door of a Jewish student's room at UC Davis and an off-campus party at UC San Diego -- the so-called Compton Cookout -- mocking poor African-Americans.

Of course, all this adult attention just encourages students and professors to generate false flag incidents. For example, as I wrote in 2010:

In the latest Noose News, the University of California at San Diego, that cauldron of white supremacy, where white undergrads make up about 30% of the campus, has been roiled by charges of racism, with the campus administration joining in -- see their official rabble-rousing website: BattleHate.UCSD.Edu.

Not surprisingly, as this Two Weeks Hate against white students built to a climax, a noose was discovered in the library to vast and completely credulous publicity, despite the long history of Hate Hoaxes on campuses.

Also, not surprisingly, the Administration wouldn't reveal the racial identity of the young woman involved. Today, I called a UCSD PR flack, and she confirmed that the student involved with the noose was a minority.

OK, on a bit of a lighter note since it is college and it is march which means that March Madness is yet again upon us.

UCLA better not tank it like last yr. Let's just see how good the Bruins do in that nice new Pauley Pavillion Post Ben Howland. Those nameless and gutless former players just had to hound him out and off the campus, lets just see how well they do in this years NCAA.

Bracket time is once again upon us and you just know the President has his alllll filled out and ready to go!

For starters, US Universities could give 3 sh*ts and a d*mn about how 'comfortable' white students are, who make up the majority of most college campuses. So if you're not concerned with the comfort of the 800 lb gorilla who essentially is the campus student body, then is it accurate to even talk about student comfort or campus climate?

No, ironically, the surveys are worse than that because what happens is that some of the white students report quite legitimately that they are feeling intimidated and abused for their race and gender, etc. And then this gets twisted into a statement like a quarter of students feel intimidated for race, so 'we must do something about it' - which leads to more preferences for minorities. You have to assume the administrators know the truth but use this as a way to get their pet liberal policies pushed through. No wonder the surveys are so popular.

My first thought on hearing about the microagressions (aside from "are you TRYING to make people hate women/gays/coloured people?") is "whatever happened to rude?" Seriously, there are cases where (1) it probably happened and (2) it wasn't quite kosher. But why can't you just say "x did/said y and it was bad manners"? Why does it have to be rape culture, systematic racism, lizard people or whateveryallarehavingyourselves?

“This is racism 2.0.” She added: “It comes with undertones, it comes with preconceived notions. You hire the Jewish economist because you think he’s going to be a good economist because he’s Jewish.” Drawing attention to microaggressions, whether they are intentional or not, is part of eliminating such stereotypes, Ms. Rabie said.

Being offended when a white person claims to be colorblind — a claim often derided by minorities who say it willfully ignores the reality of race?

"The only way to make 19-year-olds feel comfortable is to wait 30 years while they sag into their well-padded maturities. Right now, they are teenagers and their surging hormones have far more important emotions for them to feel than comfort. Adults, however, who make careers out of encouraging kids to mold permanently self-pitying identities around their transient social discomforts have much to answer for."

I don't know who wrote this but it's very thought-provoking. At a higher level than talking about microagressions specifically, it fits in with Agnostic's posts about this generation of kids and teenagers not getting to be kids and teenagers.

On the subject of micro-aggressions the Daily Mail has a story of Moochelle's mother "barking" at hapless Chinese staff while on their current vacation. Or would this be considered to be in the macro category? In any case it's another huge embarrassment for the US.Summer is coming so it's time to gear up for another season of polar bear hunting and flash mobs by The Sons of Obama. The microscopic-aggressions seem like a luxury at this point.

Oh, but actually, the jargon terms campus climate comfort don't have anything to do with the weather anymore. They have to do with how aggrieved aggrieved groups feel about the level of microaggressions and/or nanoaggressions on campus.

Each newly discovered "aggression" seems tinier and less substantial than the last.

At this rate we'll need CERN-level particle accelerators and intense data analysis to even confirm their existence.

Someone with Prestige Press credentials needs to write, in a mainstream outlet, a substantial piece about the disturbing frequency of Hate Hoaxes.

That said, having attended the University of Chicago and therefore lived on the south side of Chicago for a number of years, I'm sympathetic to NAMs complaining about the "climate." If you live on the south side you'll often find yourself in, say, a grocery store or a movie theater as the only white guy surrounded by 20-30 blacks. You feel like a minority. It's uncomfortable. So I feel for the paltry number of black kids attending Berkeley and feeling out of place. I wouldn't be comfortable at Howard, either.

The problem is that professors and administrators encourage the construal of such alienation as a form of racial aggression. It's not.

"grocery store or a movie theater as the only white guy surrounded by 20-30 blacks. You feel like a minority. It's uncomfortable. So I feel for the paltry number of black kids attending Berkeley and feeling out of place."

Well, in that grocery store, the reason you were uncomfortable was not that you had no role models or a support network--the usual complaints black students have about elite colleges.

Hoax is not a good word for these incidents. It makes it sound like a harmless antic, like tp'ing a house or short-sheeting a bed.

But they are blood libels intended to create murderous hatred towards white people. If anything, they are at least as severe as the crime they mimic. People need to start demanding that the perpetrators of these crimes get the harsh punishment they deserve.

For one thing, even if they are "hoaxes", they are still the same deed if committed by a white/straight/male person, so why don't they ever get prosecuted? I mean, if I knocked off a liquor shop and then explained that I was just engaging in theater and not really a robber, that wouldn't get me off the hook.

As at many colleges, UC's work to make campuses healthier and more harmonious began after an uproar: In early 2010, students protested a series of acts targeting minority groups on UC campuses....

It's time for this thoughtless usage to be retired. There is no majority group in California, so the term "minority" is completely superfluous. The use of the term perpetuates the false belief that Whites are numerically and thus politically dominant.

>If anything, they are at least as severe as the crime they mimic. People need to start demanding that the perpetrators of these crimes get the harsh punishment they deserve.<

Assuming you mean real crime like destroying property or credibly threatening a specific individual with death, agreed. Rudeness, prejudice, or hatred shouldn't be a crime - a large segment of the nation's population would spend time in the slammer otherwise.

Wait a minute, that could be a boon to private prisons. Lock up everyone at least once: money, here we come. (Cue the national anthem.)

I was telling the better half about 'micro aggressions', and she picked up on that pretty quick. It got to the point where every time I did something for her, I felt compelled to remind her that I was doing her a 'micro kindness'.

At this rate we'll need CERN-level particle accelerators and intense data analysis to even confirm their existence.

Just as there is an MSM diversity event horizon there will be an aggression event horizon. Perceived injustices so small they are undetectable in our universe but we'll still know they are there - somehow.

Teachers should be allowed to bring a rod or whip into classroom. The Victorians were not stupid - probably they were more intelligent than the current generation. "La letra con sangre entra" - freely translated from Spanish, "Knowledge is acquired with blood", that is, there is no feel-good way of learning but through hard work, discipline, suffering.

Serious question: do departments of feminist studies, queer tsudies,(cis)gender studies, (insert favorite aggrieved minority) studies exist at universities in East Asia and Russia? Or is this an infection than only affects western culture?

I have always wondered what a Diversity Director (Equal Opportunity Executive, Affirmative Action Officer, etc.) does to occupy their 40 hours a week. In my own (government) department, we hired such a person to take over these responsibilities, which the department's chief counsel had performed in her spare time, to the tune of maybe 5-10 hours a week, maximum. The difference being that the new hire managed to fill up an entire work week with this stuff, at a healthy salary of approximately $135K, (not bad money during a depression). Could it be that the real job of such a person on a university campus is to constantly whip up controversy about racial/sex/cultural grievances? If so, the post is really more political in nature than a real administrative function...that might explain why universities, given their progressive political slant, are so eager to spend money on these people: they get to hire minorities who are otherwise unqualified for upper management positions, and at the same time they can be assured that the latest Democratic Party issues (lack of women in STEM fields, white skin privilege etc.) are in constant play on campus.

When you pay someone $135,000 a year to find problems, those problems are never ever going too be solved. When there are whole departments based on grievances, there can never ever be harmony. The lunatics are not just running the asylum, they are running the entire world.

The "climate for women" is a big topic of discussion in my field right now. I think they do have some legitimate grievances. For example, sexually predatory faculty are rare but not completely absent, and just one or two in a department can create a very uncomfortable environment for female students there.

The trouble is that legitimate grievances like these get mixed up with other issues that, at best, are legitimate but have nothing to do with women per se, and, at worst, are "microaggression" nonsense like women feeling uncomfortable because of perceived unconscious slights by professors or students. There's an assumption that those of us skeptical about the latter must not be against the former either, and this serves to polarize people unnecessarily, usually (unsurprisingly) along political/ideological lines.

In my former profession, a few years back, the operative phrase was "feeling safe". An altar guild matron commenting on a retired straight white male priest in the presence of the new lesbian divorcee priest made the new minister feel "unsafe" somehow and a gay parishioner knowing that a particular priest would only officiate at "opposite gender" weddings made him feel "unsafe". This institution is now quite smaller and presumably safer. I think most of this nonsense is really about the demand to be affirmed and even celebrated by the white breeders.

What if the predator is gay/lesbian? Im guessing the whole matter is handled quite differently - if at all.

Good question. I don't know. I have not heard of many students complaining of harassment from professors of the same sex, but it could be that such stories don't get as much traction as the ones I have heard about women being harassed by male faculty.

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